With the weather taking a hugely welcome turn for the better over the last few weeks, attention at Humberstone has focused on getting onto the land and cracking on with a number of jobs that have been waiting in the wings. The Beyond Nature ethos for the farm emphasises the improvement of wildlife habitats – especially for wading birds and there are various activities going on to put these aims into practice.
Pond digging
Work has begun on digging out an area for the establishment of a pond with a grant from Yorkshire Water’s wildlife and biodiversity fund. The pond has various aims: it should be a good place for wildlife generally and, it’s hoped will encourage new species as there isn’t a pond in the area. It will also act as a buffer and balancing pond – providing a buffer for water after high rainfall and acting as a sediment trap to stop any sediment ending up downstream.
Rush and Grassland Management
Areas of rush provide an important habitat on the farm for wading and ground nesting birds, but need to be of a density that provides access for them – work to ‘thin out’ the rushes involving ‘weed wiping’ with Glysophate has also been completed recently.
The other ‘tool’ that will help with improving the ground conditions for nesting birds are the six new belted Galloway cattle, bought in York last month and settling in well. These kind of cattle don’t graze the sward too low, but take out rougher grasses and trample and break up rushes so they do a great job of slowly helping to improve the habitat. It also feels great to have some bovine additions to the farm livestock!
Earlier last month a delivery of 10 tonnes of Calciprill arrived – a lime based fertiliser that will get to work on improving the pH and overall soil fertility of large areas of meadowland, which will be cut for silage and hay later in the Summer. Top marks to the wagon driver who did a great job of reversing out of the farm lane!
A Hub for Learning
One of the key aims of the ‘Beyond Nature’ vision at Humberstone is to provide a space for learning and information sharing – with a focus on conservation and land management. The upland hub building is the first big step towards putting this into practice. Converted from a stone barn previously used to house cattle and animal feed the hub will provide excellent facilities for groups who want to come and learn more about the farm, it’s habitats and wildlife as well as those who just want to hold a meeting or conference in inspiring surroundings.
On the subject of learning the farm has hosted a number of interest groups over the past few weeks – including the Wharfedale Naturalists botany group looking for an unusual plant belonging to the primrose family known as ‘chickweed wintergreen’ (and they found some!) and a group from Nidderdale AONB’s Wild Watch project who carried out a reptile survey site visit – and found adders!
Coming up
In the coming weeks drystone walling is high on the list as well as sheep husbandry – keeping an eye out for flystrike and getting on with the job of clipping all the sheep. All being well the farm should be welcoming it’s first ‘baby belties’ (Belted Galloway calves!) too.
Humberstone Bank Farm joined Yorkshire Water’s ‘Beyond Nature’ vision in September 2016, with Jonathan Grayshon taking on the tenancy of the 910 hectare upland farm above Thruscross reservoir in Nidderdale AONB. The Vision for the farm is to demonstrate Humberstone Bank as an exemplar in upland management for water, biodiversity, carbon and farming and sporting enterprises.
BeyondNature 